MEASURING SERVICE QUALITY IN THE TELECOM INDUSTRY IN INDIA

Transcription

1 MEASURING SERVICE QUALITY IN THE TELECOM INDUSTRY IN INDIA Pankaj Sharma, Chitkara University, Patiala, Punjab, India. Deepika Jhamb, Chitkara University, Patiala, Punjab, India. ABSTRACT The intent of this paper is to bring greater understanding of the extent to which service is provided within the telecom industry in India, based on customer expectation and perceptions of service quality. The paper analyzes how closely the expectation and perception of customers differ. SERVQUAL model is used to measure quality, the best among customers in a predominant telecom industry in India. The survey captures customer expectations and compares them with the notion of the offerings delivered by the telecom industry in India. The finding reveals that there is a huge deficit in meeting customer expectations. The telecom service provider must keep awareness of these dimensions having higher gaps and the attributes with smooth feedback process. This gain knowledge presents to the physique of capabilities in terms of Indian telecom industry satisfactory administration. It will also be of interest to strategic and operational service managers responsible for quality and academics to study the reliability and value of quality of service comparison tools. Keywords: Service Quality, Telecom Industry, Measuring Service Quality Vol-IV, Special Issue, September 2017

2 INTRODUCTION: Indian Telecom Industry has scaled some startling zenith over the last few years and has been recognized the world-over as a foremost instrument for socio-fiscal development and plays an primary position in the economy. In India, every adult seems to have a cell phone and this industry has experienced an exponential growth of customer base. In the global competitive atmosphere of today, the quality of the service offered is considered as an essential strategy for achieve and survive (Parsuraman et al., 1985; Reichheld and Sasser, 1990; Zeithaml et al., 1990). Telecom industry has been under enormous pressure to provide quality offers and increase efficiencies. With higher expectation and growing customer attention, Indian consumers are more stressful higher first-rate of quality services or else switching over to other better services. Service providers operate in very aggressive surroundings with low margins and short-term customer satisfaction. The provision of high quality services is closely linked to the benefits, savings and market share (Zeithaml, 2000, Manusamy et al, 2010). Like many authors (Ballantayne et al, 1996 and Berry, 1996) say, it is less complicated and much more convenient to keep existing customers than to acquire new customers, more convinced of expressing and more willingness to re-use or buy a product or service. The purpose of this study is therefore to evaluate the concepts of service quality and its usefulness in the telecom industry in India. The study uses the SERVQUAL method to examine the difference between expectations and perceptions of service purchased through a provider of customer-oriented service provider. This study investigates how service expectations and customer perceptions are supported. The service quality best model has been used extensively to access the quality of retail / banking /hotel and hospitality industry however fewer approaches were reported in telecom industry. This document is prepared as above: The preliminary section provides a brief overview of the quality of services and experience of Indian telecom industry. This is further reviewed through literature on the quality of service provider service. The research methodology pursue by the result of empirical analysis is defined. Conclusion with expected consequences for management, future hurdles and guidelines are mentioned. In the end, ideas and improving provider exceptional within the telecom industry in India centered on the findings of the gain knowledge of are supplied. Profitable for academics, service industry in marketing and management pleasure seekers and the quality of customer service especially in the telecom industry. The research gain knowledge of has additionally been mentioned with quite a lot of industry professionals including senior management of telecom service providers, market research companies, academicians and inputs were taken from them so as to access the accurate and useful results. LITRETURE REVIEW: The quality of service has been studied for years because the markets are overly aggressive, marketing management has shifted its centre of attention from internal focusing performance to the production of an outside customer delight interest and customer s perception of service quality Gronroos, (1990). No corporate organization can survive without building its customer satisfaction, loyalty and brand; Moreover, no industry can make a healthy residing without meeting the expectation of its customers. That s what industries do and serve individual needs. Quality of service helps to strengthen customer relations with the institution and is a bidirectional flow value. According to Parasuraman et al. (1998), quality of service can be defined as a comprehensive judgment, such as service outlook and quite often as accredited to total purchase pleasure (Zeithaml and Bitner, 1996). Parsuraman et al, (1998) questioned the quality of service considering the industry s ability to meet or exceed customer expectations. Thant s the difference between the expectation of perceived offer and service customers (Zeithaml et al.,1990). If expectations are better than performance, perceived quality, then it is less satisfactory and therefore customer dissatisfaction occurs (Parasuraman et al., 1985; Lewis and Mitchell, 1990). Quality has been outlined in more than a few methods with the aid of high service quality professionals such as Juran, Crosby, and Deming. Crosby (1979) states that quality way conformance to the requirement. In Japanese philosophy, quality means zero defect (or defect-free) product and repair. It emphasizes doing the right thing for the first time. Garvin (1983) defines quality Vol-IV, Special Issue, September 2017

3 by analyzing the frequency of internal breakdown (prior to the product leaves the factory) and external breakdown (post the product is installed). Earlier Surprenant and Solomon (1987) said that offerings encounters are human interactions. They have mandated the customer and services provider have roles during and possibly after service meetings and that these roles are based on interpersonal interactions between industries and customers. First class service provider encounters is for this reason suffers from the point of view of both the service provider and recipient of the services. Likewise, Czepiel (1990) concluded that study of service provider should produce high and constant quality for each supplier and recipient. Nevertheless, most studies on the quality of construction of an extraordinary service provider are limited to a point of view: the receiver of the service (Guerrier and Deery, 1998; Parasuraman et al.,1988). Many have used the dual viewpoint and do not forget interactive service quality points in service meetings (Tam and Wong, 2001; Dedeke 2003; Svensson, 2004, 2006; Chow-Chua and Komaran, 2002). THE SERVQUAL MODEL: The study has shown that SERVQUAL is an effective and stable measure of service quality throughout the industry (Bebko, 2000) tool. Quality of service based on the services that meet customers expectations. In the component perceived the quality of service, consumers evaluate the substantially equivalent quality service rules outstanding. SERQUAL proposes that customers review the quality of service in five precise dimensions: tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. The SERQUAL tool consists of 22 statements to access consumer perceptions and expectations regarding service provider. The perception of a quality service comparison pleasant resulting from expectations with their perception of service provided (Zeithaml et al., 1990). It can be said that the factors that support the provision of good service quality are honestly meeting the expectations of the customer. Hence, exceptional service quality is exceeding the customer s expectations. Zeithaml and Bitner (2000) note that customer expectations are beliefs of some services that meet the requirements against which service performance is viewed. Parsuraman et al. (1998) recommended that customer expectations are what the customers expect the service to be offered as an alternative then perhaps in the present. Zeithaml et al. (1990) has recognized four causes that affect customer expectations: word-of-mouth, personal needs, past experience, and external communications. A gap gets created when the belief of the services provided is not as per the expectation of the customers. This gap thus addressed with the selection and implementation of techniques that affect the perceptions, or expectations, or both (Parsuraman et al., 1985; Zeithaml et al., 1990). Parasuraman et al. (1988) acknowledged that SERVQUAL was designed as relevant in a wide range of bids and design would suit different desires. This could be of great value when used for regular monitoring of developing providers. They have suggested that SERVQUAL model could multiply to gauge quality gaps and then applied as a diagnostic tool to allow management to establish defects in quality. The score gap is calculated by deducting statements of perception from expectation statements. If any qualification gap emerges as constructive then this implies that expectations are actually increased. This enables service managers to consider if they can reinstall the resources in areas with poor performance (Wisniewski, 2001). SERVQUAL instrument determiners the level dispenser of five most suitable dimensions and also identifies difference in the dispenser (Fig 1) These five gaps are respectively shown in Fig.1. (Large & Konig, 2009): Gap1: Between customer expectations and management perceptions. Gap2: Between management perceptions and service quality specifications. Gap3: Among service delivery and service quality specifications. Gap4: Between service delivery and external service communication. Gap5: Between customer expectations and their perceptions. As per Parasuramanet al. (1985) the hole between Gap 1, Gap 2, Gap 3, and Gap 4 are from the service provider that originated in the internal organization, whereas the Gap 5 is determined by the customer, which originated from the difference between customer expectation and their current perceptions. In order to satisfy the customer, the difference of Gap 5 needs to be shortened. Therefore, customer expected and actual level perception of the service will allow the evaluation of the overall performance with regard to service quality, which is the value of Gap 5 (Yuan et al., 2010) Vol-IV, Special Issue, September 2017

4 Fig 1: Service Quality Gap Model SERVICE QUALITY IN TELECOM INDUSTRY: A significant corpus of literature has emerged in recent years with the growth of the telecom industry worldwide. In a competitive market, service providers are expected to compete price and quality of service, it is also necessary for the service providers to meet the consumer needs, price and quality of the service (Melody, 2001). Johnson, Lancioni and Tsiros (1995) conducted a survey of telecom service provider in the UK about their expectations and perceptions of service quality. Johnson and Sirikit (2002) carried out their study of fixed and mobile telephony users in the Thai telecommunication industry using the dimensions of quality of service (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy). Tangible has emerged as the most important factor, but no significant relationship was found between the quality of service and customer service behavior intentions. Siu and Cheung (2001) studied the delivery of departmental quality warehouse service. Alzola and Robaina (2005) studied customer expectations and perceptions of B2C e-commerce service quality. Wang and Lo (2002) studied mobile cellular services in terms of after sales services quality and concluded network as the most important factors. Wal et al. (2002) also conducted a mobile service study using SERVQUAL tool to match the perception and expectation of customer services and found positive results. In the light of the previous review, studies in this area, which found very few studies focused on a comparative analysis of service quality expectations and perception of telecom operators in the India. Therefore this paper sought to compare the expectations and perceptions of customers who use telecom services. METHODS: Research Design: The SERVQUAL tool is used to measure the quality of customer service in assessing the gap between customer expectations and perceptions. The questionnaire conducted in this study consisted of two sections. Section I includes questions about the demographic profile of respondent with gender, level of education, and age. Section II implies the expectation (E) and perceptions (P) of respondents in the five dimensions steps that were tangible, reliable, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. The items in the questionnaire were measured on a 5-point scale that ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree and respondents were asked to download their expectations and perceptions. The questionnaire developed was verified by 50 customers. Questionnaire used to determine that respondents were underlined with the formulation of some questions. Since the SERVQUAL tool can be modified to meet the specific needs of the study, the specified expressions have altered. Research Technique: This research was conducted and the questionnaire was shared amongst customers using telecom services in northern India in May-June The survey questionnaire was completed by customers Vol-IV, Special Issue, September 2017

5 with available help if necessary. The simple random sampling method is used for collecting data and for customer questionnaire replies. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 16.0 was used to analyze the data. We used the exploratory analysis to measure the expectations and perception of the respondents rating. The Paired t- test was performed to verify the colossal difference between the two approximate expectation and perceptions. In order to compare customer expectations with their perceptions of the service delivery, an analysis of the score gap was performed, which revealed significant management issues. RESULTS: As shown in Table 1, survey results reported that the pattern of the customer consisted of 74% men and 26% of women. More than 48% of the respondents were aged between 26 and 30 years. About 78% have bachelor or master degrees as the highest level of schooling. 84% of respondents from private companies and 16% were government employees. To experience SERVQUAL reliability and internal consistencies of the five dimensions as prompt through Parasuraman et al. (1988), the survey tool used using Cronbach s alpha values for each dimension. Table 1: Demographic Data (Respondent Profile) Gender Age Group Education Occupation Demographics No of Percentage Respondents (%age ) Male 37 74% Female 13 26% Up to 25 years 9 18% 26 years 30 years 24 48% 31 years 40 years 12 24% 41 years or above 5 10% Less than High School 0 Senior Secondary (10+2) 11 22% Bachelor s Degree 24 48% Master s Degree and above 15 30% Pvt. Company Employee 35 70% Govt. Employee 8 16% Entrepreneur 2 4% Home Maker 2 4% Self Employed 2 4% Retired 1 2% The reliability rating for the telecom industry customers are proven in Table 2. Therefore, the SERVQUAL tool is moderately sufficient for use in the telecom industry, because Nunnally (1994) called for reliability of 0.5 to 0.6 is sufficient. The Cronbach s alpha effect between and for customers meets the minimum required reliability phases. Consequently Cronbach s alpha shows that these measurable surveys are reliable and can be extended to a bigger sample. SERVQUAL ANALYSIS: Table 3 shows the deviation scores for each of the attributes of the satisfactory customer service in the telecom industry. The table shows the mean scores, corresponding standard deviations, and the t-test results indicating the levels of agreement among the customers. The deviation for each attribute is calculated by subtracting the expectation from the perception means Vol-IV, Special Issue, September 2017

6 Table 2: Reliability Scores of SERVQUAL Scale for customers A negative quality of service shows that customer expectations exceed their perceptions. However, a positive quality of service quality shows when the customer s perception exceeds customer s expectations. In this study, all gaps in the quality of services were found poorly and were statistically at huge levels of 5%. Thus, at any level of a planned operation to understand what the customer expects, it is essential to deliver high quality service approach. From Table 3, there is the maximum average difference between expectation and customer perception in the reliability dimension. Among the five elements of the reliability dimension, customer response indicated that the maximum space available in the discipline of Provide services as per the committed timeline. Customers have perceived -2.27gap, the most important of all items. The subsequent growth gap of this industry Provide services as per the committed timeline. Customers perceived a void in the discussion -2.27, the biggest difference between all items. The subsequent largest gap observed in the area of Perform the services right in the given time. Further the third biggest difference seen in the area of service provider is sympathetic and assuring followed by Service provider are reliable and maintain accurate records. These views indicate that it is essential for service provider surveys among many customers to identify key areas of growth. If an organization does not only know about their customers, it cannot easily dedicate resources to improving those areas that can have the greatest impact on customer pride. Therefore in order to reduce these gaps, the telecom service provider intends to improve more in these areas. In step with the customer feedback, the second largest existing gap within the responsiveness dimension reactively led to terrible cracks. Among the four items within the responsiveness dimension, customer indicated the biggest gap was regarding to offer prompt services to customers, the most important item amongst all. This, of course, suggests that telecom service provider wants to provide more personal customer service support, in order to enhance the quality of services. The second major difference was found in the item inform customers when services are being performed followed by always willing to help customers and readily respond to customers request. For assurance the finest gaps perceived by way of customers had been within the relation to the declaration customer service staff gets support from the organization obviously indicating the improvement areas for telecom service provides. The second customer s greatest gap used to be customer service staff can be trusted and customer service staff is always polite followed by customer feel secured while dealing. Hence this is different expect that may be elevated. According to customer feedback the fourth largest gap identified in the tangible dimension. Among the four items of tangible dimension, customer indicated the biggest gap of Physical facilities are visually appealing. The second major difference was in the context of Physical facilities are in line with Vol-IV, Special Issue, September 2017

7 telecom services provided. The third biggest gap charged by the customers used to be Have up-to-date equipment, however, the customer perceives The customer service staff are well groomed to be the subject of inferior value. Table 3: Gaps between Perceptions and Expectations (P-E) for Customers Customers perceived terrible gaps from empathy. Among the many five items of empathy, the customers have the biggest gap for Customer Service staff understanding customer need followed by the customer service staffs have customer best interest at heart, Individual attention given by service provider, Personal attention given by customer service staff, Have convenient operating hours to all. All the gaps ranking were poorly indicating shortfall in customer expectations throughout all dimensions Vol-IV, Special Issue, September 2017

8 DISCUSSION: From the functional point of view, learning has not tried to test current thinking and improve a new study, but tried to present the results of the assessment of expectations and perceptions of the best provided for customers in telecom industry in India. Comparison of expectation and pleasant perception of the service provider studied in this in this study has proven to be safe in the Indian telecom service provider industry. The comparison of customer expectation and perception in this study has proved to be reliable in the telecom industry. The quality gap of service providers indicated that the telecom industry has not met the expectations of its customers. The result of this analysis provides evidence that the service provider gap has to be lowered. The most important step to minimize gaps is to measure customer expectations and ensure relationship with management and customer service staff. If the customer service staffs do not understand what customers want, they cannot hope to meet or exceed those desires. In fact, the gaps in the quality of service in the telecom industry in India involve a number of constraints, such as inadequate inside process support to customer service staff and inadequate ability for high-quality service deliver. Given these constraints, customer service staffs are not ready or not able to participate in the services on the stage as required by customers. As a way to bridge the gap between satisfactory customer service perceptions in the telecom industry in India, the service provider must give extra coaching to improve their customer service talent. Learning should focus on service provider s customer service staff to help the customer quickly and resolve their queries and problems. As part of the process of solving such problems, they must show a careful and courteous behavior. In addition, customer service staff should be skilled and able to provide quick and safe access for their customers. Once they promise to do everything for the customer in another time, they must get that promise. More importantly, service enhancement by way of customer orientation will provide advice to Indian telecom industry opportunity to gain self-confidence by customers. Therefore the study is able to highlight how important it is for an organization, to consider the opinions of its customers in setting their areas for exceptional development. It is extremely important for them to realize how good customer service and an overview of what it can do to measure and improve the pleasant service. As a result, to exceed customer expectations, it is essential for the Indian telecom industry to fortify the service quality provided to its customers. REFERENCES: Garvin, David A. (1983). Quality on the line. Harvard Business review, 61(5), Gronroos, C. (1990). Relationship approach to marketing in service contexts: The marketing and organizational behavior interface. Journal of business research, 20(1), Guerrier, Y., & Deery, M. (1998). Research in hospitality human resource management and organizational behaviour. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 17(2), Johnson, W. C., & Sirikit, A. (2002). Service quality in the Thai telecommunication industry: a tool for achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. Management Decision, 40(7), Johnson, R. L., Tsiros, M., & Lancioni, R. A. (1995). Measuring service quality: a systems approach. Journal of Services Marketing, 9(5), Kangis, P., & Passa, V. (1997). Awareness of service charges and its influence on customer expectations and perceptions of quality in banking. Journal of Services Marketing, 11(2), Lewis, B. R., & Mitchell, V. W. (1990). Defining and measuring the quality of customer service. Marketing intelligence & planning, 8(6), Luk, S. T. (1997). An examination of the role of marketing culture in service quality. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 9(1), Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research. The Journal of Marketing, Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1988). Servqual: A multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perc. Journal of retailing, 64(1), 12. Parasuraman, A., Berry, L. L., & Zeithaml, V. A. (1991). Refinement and reassessment of the SERVQUAL scale. Journal of retailing, 67(4), Vol-IV, Special Issue, September 2017

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